Untitled Capital Ship Project Update 21

Since the last update, I haven’t done anything to the model because I am behind on writing updates on the project. The Brig and the Armory are now done and I am happy with the results. After this, there is not much left to do until I consider the ship complete. I still don’t have a name for the ship but I will think about it eventually.

The Brig is reminiscent of Detention Block AA-23 on the Death Star where Princess Leia was being held prior to her self-assisted rescue by the less than tall enough Stormtrooper and the scruffy looking nerf herder. It’s not nearly as big as the detention block nor does it have a smelly Wookiee resistant trash chute but it gets the job done.

The Armory is not very large but it can hold a plenty of hand held weapons and batteries for a small army. This is likely a scout ship so it doesn’t need much ground based artillery. I suppose anything else will have to go in the cargo holds.

First off I decided to make the Brig two levels high. The entrance/security section of the Brig is on the second level and the security personnel have a work station up front just like in the movie. There is a staircase that leads down to the cell block and each cell sits even lower to make sure the security personnel remain on high ground. The Armory is below the floor of the Brig’s front section in a separate bulkhead section.

I put in the wall parts for the entrance to the Brig leaving space for the stairs leading down to the cell block. The floor of the cell block corridor is 5 feet lower than the floor of the entrance/security section. I added standard wall panels along the corridor as a placeholder so I could make sure everything lined up with the grid. I then laid out where the cells would be with the same panels. I made the floors of the cells 4 feet lower than the cell block corridor with their walls 4 feet taller than normal so I could use regular height doors for entry into the cells. Back to the corridor I decided on making the walls angled like the ones on the Death Star detention block. The cells are two wall panels wide so I created wall section dividers with the angled wall shape and placed them two wall panels apart. The faces of the dividers have the same profile as the standard ones except the center strip is removed and they lit up in red.

I then created the wall panels to match the angles of the wall dividers using the same design of the standard panels, just angled. At first they were the full standard panel width of 4 feet and the cell doors would go next to them but instead I thought it would look better with the doors centered in the middle of each wall section in from of the cells so I made the wall panels half the width they had been.

For the doors of the cells, I started with the design of the interior doors and made it so there would be two door slabs closing against each other. The door slabs have diagonal ‘bars’ in them instead of typical vertical ones. I added a red button to the left of the doors to activate them. One of the cells was left open to make it accessible. I would make all of the doors dynamic components so they could be opened with the SketchUp Interact tool but I don’t have to pro version which lets you create dynamic components. Maybe I can convince someone with the full version to help me turn them into dynamic components once the ship is done.

The cells needed steps the descend 4 feet down into the cells but I didn’t want the steps the extend very far into the room so I designed some steps with staggered treads making them extend half as far inward as regular steps. There are stairs like this in real life such as some on boats and yachts so I can’t take credit for that idea.

The interior of each cell needed a single bunk so I made a platform attached to the back wall with a thin mattress on it. In addition to the bunk there needed to be a waste extraction unit (Star Wars for term for toilet) along with a sink. I again borrowed from my first starship; this time I copied the waste extraction unit and the wall sink and combined them into a single unit like you would see in an actually detention facility. I discovered that the waste extraction unit far exceeded the dimensions of a typical toilet so I fixed it as I added the sink to the top. I can’t take the responsibility of someone theoretically falling in.

Now that the cells were finished I needed to finish the cell block corridor. First I created wall panels for the end of the corridor to fit shape of the edge of the side walls. Next there needed to be a ceiling section for each row of cells so I modeled a coped tray ceiling panel similar to the ones in the Ready Room and the Situation Room except scaled to the size and shape needed and for the light panel being red.

Next I worked on the stairs leading down to the cell block corridor. I used to same profile for the steps as the one on the Main Bridge but made the treads less deep to conserve space. I also changed the color of the light strip from blue to red to match the rest of corridor. Then I had to make side walls for the stairwell by first modeling the light rails to match the same slope as the stairs. I made the wall panels to match the same slope and made sure I only needed a single unique wall panel that could be repeated the 8 times necessary. Finally I created the sloped ceiling to finish off the corridor stairwell.

Once the cell block was done I went on to finish the security section of the Brig. It needed security cameras so I drew direct inspiration from Star Wars and did my best to model the security cams from Detention Block AA-23 but without the probes that sit between the 6 individual sensors that make up the security camera. The sensors are actually Paterson Trident battery powered 35mm slide viewers from the 1960’s. I didn’t include all the details of the design of the slide viewers to conserve file size. I placed the cameras in all four corners of the room and placed two in the cell block corridor.

The final thing the Brig needed was the security work station. In Detention Block AA-23 there are 5 consoles arranged in a semicircle. I did something similar but I started with the free-standing computer console from the Tactical Bridge. I tried using 5 but they took up too much space so I ended up with 3. I didn’t want all the consoles to be the same so I made a new one with entirely different controls. As I write this I noticed that I have messed up the middle console, oops! It’s fixed now.

The Armory was not difficult to do only it was difficult to find an example of an Armory in the Star Wars universe for inspiration. What I came up with is a rack designed to hold several different kinds of weaponry and gear and is secured by force fields. The racks have cutouts for each item along with clips to hold on to them. I made spaces for the following items: 24 E-11 blaster rifles, 16 DLT-19 heavy blaster rifles, 12 T-21 light repeating blasters, 32 SE-14r light repeating blasters, 96 Imperial Thermal Detonators, 32 Model TD2.3 electrobinoculars and 48 fibercord grappling hooks. These items are all used by Imperial Stormtroopers but that doesn’t mean this is an Imperial ship. I still haven’t decided who the ship will be owned by.

Once I finished the storage racks I added a standing wall console to the left of the entrance. I removed all the unnecessary controls and the display screens from the console because its purpose is only for inventory control and the activation/deactivation of the force fields.

The final touch for the Armory was to model some storage crates to store in the room. The storage crates would be used for batteries and other small expendable supplies. They have interlocking lids and have rails and slots on them that are useful in stacking the containers securely.

What’s next? I think it is time to work on the Mess Hall and the Galley.

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About JediCharles.com

I'm a Star Wars and SketchUp enthusiast living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). This blog serves as my personal posting ground for all things I create through my 3D modeling hobby combined with my love of Star Wars. Occasionally, topics will also include things relating to DMD and physical disability.